Online Safety Bill

Lord Harlech Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 19th April 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harlech (Con)]

My Lords, we have had a good-natured and informative opening debate, but we should keep our remarks to this particular amendment, in the knowledge that all future amendments will have their rightful discussion in due course.

[Baroness Benjamin (LD)]

I thank the noble Lord. I hope that the amendments I support will be supported by CEASE, Refuge and Barnardo’s—I declare an interest here. Let us not let the chance of creating a robust Online Safety Bill slip through our fingers. It is now time to act with boldness, vision, morality and determination. I trust that we will continue to focus on the purpose of the Bill: to make the online world safer, especially for our children. They are relying on us to do the right thing, so let us do so.

Online Safety Bill

Lord Harlech Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 2nd May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

I thank the noble Lord for his clarification, although, speaking not as a lawyer, my understanding is that a human right is a legal right; it is a law—a most fundamental right. In addition, every country in the world has ratified this except for the United States—which is another issue. I also point out that it is particularly important that we include reference to children’s rights in this Bill, given the fact that we as a country currently treat our children very badly. There is a huge range of issues, and we should have a demonstration in this and every Bill that the rights of children are respected across all aspects of British society.

I will not get diverted into a whole range of those, but I point noble Lords to a report to the United Nations from the Equality and Human Rights Commission in February this year that highlighted a number of ways in which children’s rights are not being lived up to in the UK. The most relevant part of this letter that the EHRC sent to the UN stresses that it is crucial to preserve children’s rights to accessible information and digital connectivity. That comes from our EHRC.

I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Russell, who referred to the fact that we live in a global environment, and of course our social media and the internet is very much a global world. I urge everyone who has not done so to look at a big report done by UNICEF in 2019, Global Kids Online, which, crucially, involved a huge amount of surveys, consultation and consideration by young people. Later we will get to an amendment of mine which says that we should have the direct voice of young people overseeing the implementation of the Bill. I am talking not about the NGOs that represent them but specifically about children: we need to listen to the children and young people.

The UNICEF report said that it was quite easy to defend access to information and to reputable sources, but showed that accessing entertainment activities—some of the things that perhaps some grandparents in this Chamber might have trouble with—was associated with the positive development of digital skills. Furthermore, the report says:

“When parents restrict children’s internet use”—


of course, this could also apply to the Government restricting their internet use—

“this has a negative effect on children’s information-seeking and privacy skills”.

So, if you do not give children the chance to develop these skills to learn how to navigate the internet, and they suddenly go to it at age 18 and a whole lot of stuff is out there that they have not developed any skills to deal with, you are setting yourself up for a real problem. So UNICEF stresses the real need to have children’s access.

Interestingly, this report—which was a global report from UNICEF—said that

“fewer than one third of children had been exposed to”

something they had found uncomfortable or upsetting in the preceding year. That is on the global scale. Perhaps that is an important balance to some of the other debates we have had in your Lordships’ House on the Bill.

Other figures from this report that I think are worth noting—this is from 2019, so these figures will undoubtedly have gone up—include the finding that

“one in three children globally is … an internet user and …. one in three internet users is a child”.

We have been talking about this as though the internet is “the grown-ups’ thing”, but that is not the global reality. It was co-created, established and in some cases invented by people under the age of 18. I am afraid to say that your Lordships’ House is not particularly well equipped to deal with this, but we need to understand this as best we possibly can. I note that the report also said, looking at the sustainable development goals on quality of education, good jobs and reducing inequality, that internet access for children was crucial.

I will make one final point. I apologise; I am aware that I have been speaking for a while, but I am passionate about these issues. Children and young people have agency and the ability to act and engage in politics. In several nations on these islands, 16 and 17 year-olds have the vote. I very much hope that that will soon also be the case in England, and indeed I hope that soon children even younger than that that will have the vote. I was talking about that with a great audience of year nines at the Queen’s School in Bushey on Friday with Learn with the Lords. Those children would have a great opportunity—

[Lord Harlech (Con)]

My Lords, we have a very full order of business to get through, so I encourage the noble Baroness to remain on topic.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

I think that is on topic. If 16 and 17 year-olds are voting, they have a right to access internet information about voting. I suggest that that is on topic.

My final point—for the pleasure of the noble Lord—is that historically we have seen examples where blocks and filters have denied children and young people who identify as LGBTQI+ access to crucial information for them. That is an example of the risk if we do not allow them right of access. On the most basic children’s right of all, we have also seen examples of blocks and filters that have stopped access to breastfeeding information on the internet. Access is a crucial issue, and what could be a more obvious way to allow it than by writing in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of the Child?

Online Safety Bill

Lord Harlech Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 25th May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

Then I shall slightly modify some of the things I was going to say.

When this Bill was conceived, the online world was very different from how it is today. It is hard to imagine how it will look in the future. I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, and the Dawes Centre for Future Crime at UCL, for information that they have given to me. I am also grateful to my noble friend Lady Kidron, and the enforcement officers who have shared with us images which are so horrific that I wish that I had never seen them—but you cannot unsee what you have seen. I admire how they have kept going and maintained a moral compass in their work.

The metaverse is already disrupting the online world as we know it. By 2024, it is estimated that there will be 1.7 billion mobile augmented-reality user devices worldwide. More than one-fifth of five to 10 year-olds already have a virtual reality headset of their own, or have asked for similar technology as a gift. The AI models are also developing quickly. My Amendment 241 would require Ofcom to be alert to the ways in which emerging technologies allow for activities that are illegal in the real world to be carried out online, to identify the places where the law is not keeping up to date with technological developments.

The metaverse seems to have 10 attributes. It is multiuser and multipurpose, content is user-generated, it is immersive, and spatial interactions occur in virtual reality or have physical environments enhanced by augmented reality. Its digital aspects do not expire when the experience ends, and it is multiplatform and interoperable, as users move between platforms. Avatars are involved, and in the metaverse there is ownership of the avatars or other assets such as virtual property, cryptocurrency et cetera. These attributes allow it to be used to master training scenarios of complex situations, such as in surgical training for keyhole surgery, where it can improve accuracy rapidly. On the horizon are brain/computer interfaces, which may be very helpful in rehabilitative adaptation after severe neurological damage.

These developments have great potential. However, dangers arise when virtual and augmented reality devices are linked to such things as wearable haptic suits, which allow the user to feel interactions through physical sensation, and teledildonics, which are electronic devices that simulate sexual interaction.

With the development of deep-fake imagery, it is now possible for an individual to order a VR experience of abusing the image of a child whom they know. The computer-generated images are so realistic that they are almost impossible to distinguish from those that would be cartoon-generated. An avatar can sexually assault the avatar of a minor, and such an avatar of the minor can be personalised. Worryingly, there have been growing reports of these assaults and rapes happening. Since the intention of VR is to trick the human nervous system into experiencing perceptual and bodily reactions, while such a virtual assault may not involve physical touching, the psychological, neurological and emotional experience can be similar to a physical assault.

This fuels sex addiction and violence addiction, and is altering the offender pathway: once the offender has engaged with VR abuse material, there is no desire to go back to 2D material. Offenders report that they want more: in the case of VR, that would be moving to live abuse, as has been said. The time from the development of abnormal sexual desires to real offending is shortened as the offender seeks ever-increasing and diverse stimulation to achieve the same reward. Through Amendment 125, such content would be regarded as user-generated.

Under Amendment 241, Ofcom could suggest ways in which Parliament may want to update the current law on child pornography to catch such deep-fake imagery, as these problematic behaviours are illegal in the real world but do not appear to be illegal online or in the virtual world.

Difficulties also arise over aspects of terrorism. It is currently a criminal offence to attend a terrorist training ground. Can the Minister confirm that Amendment 136C, which we have debated and which will be moved in a later group, would make attending a virtual training ground illegal? How will Ofcom be placed to identify and close any loopholes?

The Dawes Centre for Future Crime has identified 31 unique crime threats or offences which are risks in the metaverse, particularly relating to child sexual abuse material, child grooming, investment scams, hate crime, harassment and radicalisation.

I hope the Minister can confirm that the Bill already applies to the metaverse, with its definition of user-to-user services and technology-neutral terminology, and that its broad definition of “encountering” includes experiencing content such as haptic suits or virtual or augmented reality through the technology-neutral expression “or other automated tool”. Can the Minister also confirm that the changes made in the other place in Clause 85 require providers of metaverse services to consider the level of risk of the service being used for the commission or facilitation of a priority offence?

The welcome addition to the Bill of a risk assessment duty, however, should be broadened to include offences which are not only priority offences. I ask the Minister: will the list of offences in Schedules 5 to 7 to the Bill be amended to include the option of adding to this list to cover other harmful offences such as sexual offences against adults, impersonation scams, and cyber physical attacks such as cyber burglary, which can lead to planned burglary, attacks on key infrastructure and assault?

The ability to expand the risk assessment criteria could future-proof the Bill against such offences by keeping the list open, rather than closed as it is at the moment, to other serious offences committed in user-to-user or combined service providers. Such duties should apply across all services, not only those in category 1, because the smaller platforms, which are not covered by empowerment duties, may present a particularly high risk of illegal content and harmful behaviours.

Can the Minister therefore please tell us how content that is illegal in the real world will be reported, and how complaints can be made when it is encountered, if it is not a listed priority offence in the Bill? Will the Government expand the scope to cover not only illegal content, as defined in Clauses 207 and 53, but complex activities and interactions that are possible in the metaverse? How will the list of priority offences be expanded? Will the Government amend the Bill to enable Ofcom to take a risk-based approach to identifying who becomes classified as a category 1 provider?

I could go on to list many other ways in which our current laws will struggle to remain relevant against the emerging technologies. The list’s length shows the need for Ofcom to be able to act and report on such areas—and that Parliament must be alive to the need to stay up to date.

[Lord Harlech (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, for tempering her remarks. On tempering speeches and things like that, I can inform noble Lords that the current school group have been escorted from the Chamber, and no further school groups will enter for the duration of the debate on this group of amendments.

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to support Amendment 241, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, as she mentioned. I also spoke in the Private Member’s Bill that the noble Baroness previously brought before your Lordships’ House, in a similar vein, regarding future-proofing.

The particular issue in Amendment 241 that I wish to address is

“the extent to which new communications and internet technologies allow for behaviours which would be in breach of the law if the equivalent behaviours were committed in the physical world”.

The use of “behaviours” brings into sharp focus the applicability of the Online Safety Bill in the metaverse. Since that Private Member’s Bill, I have learned much about future-proofing from the expert work of the Dawes Centre for Future Crime at UCL. I reached out to the centre as it seemed to me that some conduct and crimes in the physical world would not be criminal if committed in the metaverse.

I will share the example, which seems quite banal, that led me to contact them. The office meeting now takes place in the metaverse. All my colleagues are represented by avatars. My firm has equipped me with the most sophisticated haptic suit. During the meeting, the avatar of one of my colleagues slaps the bum of my avatar. The haptic suit means that I have a physical response to that, to add to the fright and shock. Even without such a suit, I would be shocked and frightened. Physically, I am, of course, working in my own home.

[Lord Harlech (Con)]

My Lords, I apologise to my noble friend. I ask that we pause the debate to ask this school group to exit the Chamber. We do not think that the subject matter and content will be suitable for that audience. I am very sorry. The House is pausing.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

In this moment while we pause, I congratulate the noble Lord, the Government Whip, for being so vigilant: some of us in the Chamber cannot see the whole Gallery. It is appreciated.

Online Safety Bill

Lord Harlech Excerpts

Report stage
Thursday 6th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

Before the Minister sits down, I express my gratitude that he has indicated that my amendment would have some serious impact. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, for saying that there should be some learning among men in the House and in wider society about what puts real fear in the hearts of women and how it affects how women conduct their lives. I thank those who said that some change is necessary.

We have to remember that this clause covers a threatening communications offence. I know that something is going to be said about the particular vulnerability of women and girls—the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, mentioned it, and I am grateful for that—but this offence is not specific to one gender. It is a general offence that someone commits if a message they send conveys a threat of death or serious harm.

I reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, that we are not talking about a slight—saying to a woman that she is ugly or something. This is not about insults but about serious threats. The business about it being reckless as to whether or not it is going to be carried out is vital. Clause 164(1)(c)(i) says an offence is committed if it is intended that an individual encountering the message would fear that the threat would be carried out. I would like to see added the words, “whether or not by the person sending the message”.

Just think of this in the Irish context of years gone by. If someone sent a message saying, “You should be kneecapped”, it is very clear that we would be talking about something that would put someone in terror and fear. It is a serious fear, so I am glad that this is supported by the Minister, and I hope we will progress it to the next stage.

[Lord Harlech (Con)]

My Lords, without wishing to disrupt the very good nature of this debate, I remind the House that the Companion advises against speaking more than once on Report, except for specific questions or points of elucidation.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

None the less, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her clarification and expansion of this point. I am glad that she is satisfied with the approach we have set out.

Online Safety Bill

Lord Harlech Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 10th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 184 in my name—

[Lord Harlech (Con)]

My Lords, the guidance in the Companion states that Peers who were not present for the opening of this debate last week should not speak in the debate today, so I will have to ask the noble Baroness to reserve her remarks on this occasion.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, that neatly brings me to the beginning of my own speech. I have expressed to the Chief Whip and the Minister my great regret that my noble friend Lady Benjamin is not able to take part in today’s debate because of the rather arbitrary way the group was started at the very end of proceedings on Thursday. The Minister is very much aware of that; it is a very sad thing.

I pay huge tribute to my noble friend, as the noble Lords, Lord Bethell and Lord Farmer, have. She is sitting behind me, yet she cannot make her contribution after a decade of campaigning so passionately on these issues. That includes pushing for age verification for pornographic content. We stood shoulder to shoulder on Part 3 of the Digital Economy Act, and she has carried that passion through into the debates on this Bill.

My noble friend believes that the Minister’s amendments in particular are a huge step forward. She describes this as a landmark moment from her point of view. She wants me to thank Barnardo’s, CARE and CEASE for their support and for bringing evidence and research to us on pornography. She would like to thank the Secretary of State and the Minister in particular for taking us to this point.

My noble friend also welcomes the review that was announced last week but, like the noble Lords, Lord Bethell and Lord Farmer, she has some questions that have be asked. This review is a good opportunity to examine the gaps in regulation, but it is proposed that the review will take a year. Is that the proposal and is it a firm year? What happens thereafter? Is there a commitment by the Government to legislate on this, if they are still the Government in a year’s time? What are their intentions and what is the road map to legislation? For instance, the gambling review started four years ago and we have not seen real change yet, so I think it is important to have some assurance in that respect.

Who will be involved in the review? Will the third sector and charity organisations working in this space be involved? The noble Lord, Lord Farmer, asked about scientific and medical research, which are all important aspects. I know that my noble friend would want to pay her own tribute to the noble Lords, Lord Farmer and Lord Bethell, to others involved in this exercise—“exercise” should be what it is called as it certainly feels like exercise—and in particular to the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron. I hope that the Minister will give my noble friend those assurances, despite the fact that she is not able to take part in this debate today.

From my point of view, I welcome the Government’s decision to strengthen the Bill’s age-verification requirements for online pornography, especially in respect of the principles for age assurance. But—and there always is a “but”—we absolutely need that age assurance to be privacy protecting. Amendment 125 is crucial and I am disappointed that it has not been included so far.

My noble friend Lord Allan referred to one of the major objections. We had a huge argument and debate about the efficacy of age verification when we discussed Part 3. There were great fears that age verification was going to be privacy invading and there was not a great deal of certainty about the kind of technology that was available for this kind of privacy-protecting age verification. I personally prefer and wanted to see third-party age verification; at the time, I thought it far better and safer to have third parties, such as Yoti, being responsible for our certification rather than the big tech companies, for all kinds of reasons and not just competitive ones. If we do not have some privacy-protecting language, we will be back in that situation of suspicion if we are not very careful.

Like my noble friend, I welcome the announcement of a review on the issue. There is a huge gap currently, and I give credit to the Secretary of State for understanding that that gap between the treatment of online pornography and offline pornography is very large indeed, as the BBFC can say from its experience. There is a wealth of evidence showing the link between violent pornography and real-life violence against women and girls. That is one of the reasons that I am so pleased that this review is taking place.

I mentioned the BBFC and have mentioned it before. It was going to be the regulator under Part 3 of the Digital Economy Bill. I very much hope that the Government will consult the BBFC, as it has a great deal of experience in offline certification, so I hope it will be heavily involved in a review of this kind.

I listened to my noble friend very intently and I think he made many points that resonate about the practical way in which will need to age-verify to make it simple for the public who are 18 and over. I much prefer the idea of third-party age verification to putting myself in the hands of big tech. I hope that Ofcom and the Government will do everything they can to make sure that those kinds of services are readily available and are not just controlled by the big tech companies in an anti-competitive way.

Online Safety Bill

Lord Harlech Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 17th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend very much for that intervention.

[Lord Harlech (Con)]

My Lords, I remind the House that, as we are on Report, interventions on current speakers should be for direct questions or points of elucidation.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

I am sure my noble friend with 30 years’ experience stands duly corrected. He has reminded us that we have 20 years’ experience of something being on the statute book without really cranking up the powers and duties that are on it or giving Ofcom appropriate resources in the media literacy area. If that was about offline—the original 2003 duty—we know that it is even more important online to have these media literacy duties in place. I very much hope that the Minister can give us, in a sense, a token of earnest—that it is not just about putting these duties on the statute book but about giving Ofcom the resources to follow this up. Of course, it is also relevant to other regulators, which was partly the reason for having a duty of co-operation. Perhaps he will also, at the same time, describe how regulators such as Ofsted will have a role in media literacy.

I shall briefly talk about Amendment 269AA to Clause 141, which is the clause in the Bill setting up the advisory committee on misinformation and disinformation. I heard very clearly what the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, had to say, and I absolutely agree—there is no silver bullet in all this. Establishing provenance is but one way in which to get greater transparency and authentication and exercise judgment; it is not the complete answer, but it is one way of getting to grips more with some of the information coming through online. She may have seen that this is an “and” rather than an “or”, which is why the amendment is phrased as it is.

Of course, it is really important that there are initiatives. The one that I want to mention today about provenance is the Content Authenticity Initiative, which I mentioned in Committee. We need to use the power of such initiatives; it is a global coalition working to increase transparency in digital content through open industry standards, and it was founded four years ago and has more than 1,500 members, with some major companies such as Adobe, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Arm, Intel—I could go on. I very much hope that Ofcom will engage with the Content Authenticity Initiative, whatever the content of the Bill. In a sense, I am raising the issue for the Minister to give us assurances that this is within the scope of what the committee will be doing—that it is not just a question of doing what is in the Bill, and this will be included in the scope of the advisory committee’s work.

Thea AI has been an industry-led initiative that has developed content credentials which encode important metadata into pieces of content. Those pieces of information reside indefinitely in the content, wherever it is used, published or stored, and, as a result, viewers are able to make more informed decisions about whether or not to trust the content. The advisory committee really should consider the role of provenance tools such as content credentials to enable users to have the relevant information to decide what is real and what is disinformation or misinformation online. That would entirely fit the strategy of this Bill to empower adult users.

--- Later in debate ---

Amendment 236B agreed.

[Lord Harlech (Con)]

I beg to move that further consideration on Report be adjourned and that the House be adjourned during pleasure until 10.15 pm.

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

My Lords, has the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, seen paragraph 3.1 of the Companion? In case he has not—I know he is very new to this House—it states:

“It is a firm convention”—


not any old convention, but a firm convention—

“that the House normally rises by about 10pm on Mondays to Wednesdays”.

Can he explain why today is so different?

[Lord Harlech (Con)]

I take the noble Lord’s points on board. I think that my noble friend the Chief Whip answered those points at the Dispatch Box earlier today.

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

I appreciate that the noble Lord is put in a difficult position, but all the Chief Whip said was that this is usual. When was the last occasion that this had to happen in the way that it is happening tonight?

[Lord Harlech (Con)]

Perhaps this is something to discuss with my noble friend the Chief Whip while the House adjourns during pleasure.